


The Great Pretender

by Hobbitrocious



Series: The Bruschetta Universe (Don't Ask) [5]
Category: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Genre: ABDL, Abandonment, Adult baby, Age Play, Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, Daddy Issues, Escapism, Heartbreak, Imaginary Daddy, Infantilism, Loneliness, Men Crying, One-Sided Relationship, Other, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Post-Break Up, Post-Movie, Sad, Self-Esteem Issues, Stream of Consciousness, Triggers, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 11:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3766915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hobbitrocious/pseuds/Hobbitrocious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years on after Perry left him, Harry hasn't moved on. Perry left deeper wounds than any of Harry's previous exes because Perry had also been 'Daddy' to Harry's traumatised inner child. Having that ripped away has not been good for Harry. Wallowing in his pain is the only joy he gets out of life these days.</p><p>Possibly triggery? I'm not sure. Please read the tags first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Pretender

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is sort of what began the storytelling pattern I've followed in the other Bruschetta Universe AB fic, so I feel this too belongs to the BU series despite the fandom leap. (Actually, this fic IS the Bruschetta Universe all by itself. But enough cryptic labelling from me.)
> 
> Originally written May 31st 2014, as a private, heartfelt piece for a special recipient. Said recipient apparently didn't give a rat's patootie, so now it's open for the entire interweb to read. Enjoy.
> 
> Praise and thanks be to Abba YHWH, who allows me to express myself through this writing and in so many other ways!

Harry is wrapped up in a large, soft, thin, baby blue blanket and sitting in the middle of a sparsely furnished room. The walls are a soothing half-and-half of pastel purple near the floor and pale olive-like green toward the ceiling, a combination that doesn't look too bad against the apartment's bland, neutral carpeting and the lacquered white doorjamb and window frame.

He painted the walls himself when he moved in, just a couple months ago, but it feels like forever ago already. Working to afford rent, he hasn't had much time to spend at home, let alone a chore-free day to spend relaxing in his bedroom... or, as he prefers to think of it, the nursery room. He spends so little time here that it hardly feels like it's his. It hardly feels real, sometimes.

His twin-size mattress on top of a box-spring with no frame is the closest he has to a crib right now, but he hopes to someday have a proper one. Even if he has to build it himself, which he probably will. Time, money, and tools are lacking right now, as are his woodworking skills. He already knows he wants to paint it white to match the accent motif the building's default trim has become. A fantastically large, cheap silk flower with a three-foot-long stem is propped in the corner next to the closet, its feathered blossom of white petals cinching the decorative choice.

The sheets on Harry's bed are, likewise, plain white and cheap. The bed is made a little more inviting by three long body pillows lining the sides - two against the wall, and one snugged beneath the fitted sheet as sort of a makeshift bumper rail on the side facing out. The body pillow cushioning the head of the bed is covered with a small sheet meant for a real infant's crib, and it is dotted with images of Winnie the Pooh having summer adventures among flowers and bees. All the pictures of Pooh are sideways since the body pillow is sitting the long way.

A small, old kit bookcase stands close to the bed. Some of the books, toys, and videos on its three rickety shelves are older than the bookcase by maybe twenty years. A few of the toys are newer, thing like cheap blocks and puzzles that bore Made In China stickers when Harry bought them at the local closeout store. The tiny but kindly-looking teddy bear next to the clock on top is from the dollar store. Harry tries not to handle the bear too much, lest the cheap construction wear out before its time. 

Harry did always have a weird thing about stuffed animals; didn't like sleeping with them as a kid for fear of rolling on them in his sleep and squishing them. Besides, he had a habit of hugging his pillow instead, which meant plushies just got in the way.

That hasn't changed.

A small TV/VCR combo sits on the floor in another corner. The room's dimensions make that at the foot of the bed. It's switched off, silent after running for about thirty minutes that morning playing a lazy episode of the book-based "Spot".

The vertical blinds are pulled all the way to the side, letting the sun fill the room from the TV corner. The curtain, too, is pulled open. Said curtain is a threadbare quilt with badly frayed edges, 'installed' by having been slung over a pressure-mounted shower curtain rod in front of the blinds. It doesn't entirely block out the parking lot lamps at night, but does a better job than the blinds alone.

Someday, Harry will get around to scrounging up another matching Winnie the Pooh sheet, or some equally appropriate fabric, and turn that into a real curtain set for the nursery window. Truth told, he's not that bad with a needle and thread when he's not regressed.

But he is regressed at the moment, so all the sharp and pointy and potentially dangerous things - the 'grown-up' things - stay in the living room while Harry sits in the nursery.

The room is clean, the carpet freshly vacuumed last night and the toys put away in either the bookcase or the closet. Harry sort of wants to pull something out to play with, but, on the other hand, he's feeling too anxious and overwhelmed to focus, still getting used to his new home. 

Daddy isn't here to help him adjust, hasn't been around for a few years, in fact, and thinking about that makes Harry feel even worse. 

Perry broke up with him... three years ago, now, was it? It will be, in November.

Time has flown.

Harry clutches the blanket tightly around himself, the tension in the fabric vaguely mimicking an embrace around him but not nearly close enough. He rocks a bit there on the floor, looking around at the calming purple-and-green walls and missing Daddy so, so badly. Or bad. Badly. Whichever.

It seemed as though he and Perry were on speaking terms again a year after the break-up, but now Perry has gone three and a half months without answering any of Harry's text messages. It was a steady decline, then a full stop.

Harmony insists Harry is officially being given the silent treatment. Harry is finally starting to accept she may be right.

Even with Perry on the opposite coast, the sparse contact he kept with Harry was heartening while it lasted. But now that's gone, and so is Harry's nerve.

This whole infantilism thing that started ages ago as a rare form of stress relief has turned into the last bastion of Harry's sanity. If he can escape to a second childhood in the weary, quiet moments he gets at home, he can just manage to scrape through the rest of the week pretending to be a semi-responsible, emotionally stable adult.

In reality, though, he left his emotional stability in California. His sense of responsibility was always a sham, if that ever mattered to anyone.

He thinks of the few occasions when Perry, thinking it was cute, bundled Harry into his arms and played along with the baby stuff. Perry enjoyed being Daddy, or at least claimed to. Despite the roller coaster Harry's still riding out on Perry's account, Harry is grateful for the memories of having Perry for a Daddy for a short while.

For that brief time, there was someone there to snuggle up to on the couch after a long day, even if Perry wasn't the type willing to listen to Harry unload while they cuddled. There was someone to bathe Harry like a little kid on evenings when he needed extra attention. There was someone to hold him close and feed him a lovingly prepared bottle of milk or juice after he went for most of the day without stopping to eat. There was someone looking on, watching adoringly and making him feel safe, during visits to the park and, if they were lucky, the empty playground inside the park. There was someone around to remind him to go use the bathroom if he started doing the fidgety dance and then happened to get distracted before he thought of going himself.

There was someone around who said he loved him, and whom Harry thinks he might have loved in return. 

Even after all of Perry's romantic waxings are thrown into question with the abrupt dumping of the relationship, Harry is still hopelessly, harmfully attached to Perry, and Harry suspects the father/son bond that sprang up alongside that of boyfriend/boyfriend could be largely to blame. Harry's not sure. 

His break-ups with women never hit him this hard, but then he never called any of them 'Mommy'.

Harry knows how messed up he must look to anyone peering in, figuratively speaking. 

Figuratively unless some creepy bastard in the neighbouring high-rise has binoculars or a telescope, and likes to¾ pfft, nevermind. Window peeping of that kind probably died out with the invention of the internet and of cell phone games. Right? 

Harry hopes so.

His room looks like it belongs to a preschooler, but, on days when Harry is especially lonely and sad, he feels as though he slips into an even younger headspace than that.

His stomach churns sickeningly, the free pizza he gets at work and the stale M&Ms given him by the bakery owner next-door to the pizzeria not sitting well. He hates living on junk food ¾ moreso after Perry introducing him to healthier stuff ¾ but he has to take the freebies or starve most of the month or come up short on rent day. He comes close enough to vomiting that he considers starving half the month over taking advantage of the freebies for a while.

He looks to the door of the nursery and imagines Perry entering with a sympathetic expression and a big hug at the ready to make everything better. 

"Wan'... Daddy..." Harry mourns needily into the silence. It sounds infinitely more pathetic aloud than it does in his head.

Of course, Daddy doesn't come.

Harry's loneliness magnifies. He shudders and begins to cry, not breathing as deeply as he really needs to because he's sharply conscious of how much the neighbours could hear were he to let his pent-up wails escape.

He realises he's been rocking back and forth again and stops to wipe his eyes with the blanket. One of his hankies is out of reach on the bed, so he scoots over to it and reaches up blindly until he finds it, and blows his nose. Yeah, it's unconventional and ridiculously old-fashioned and doesn't sound as sanitary as it really is, but it also turns out washing handkerchiefs with the rest of the laundry and reusing them is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying box after box of Kleenex when he cries so often. Not to mention that's on top of dealing with the seasonal allergies kicking in at the same time of year as the warm weather makes the effects of the city smog that much worse.

He leans heavily against the side of the bed and moans, face half-smothered in the sheet as he rubs into it for comfort. The brief lack of air calms him down a bit, and his quiet sobs subside. He takes a deep breath and glances around the room once more with red-rimmed eyes.

He's drained. He wants a bottle and then a nap. But the baby bottles are in the kitchen cupboard, and the thought of having to wrench out of how 'little' he currently is long enough to prepare one makes Harry sick to his stomach again. 

He settles for standing on his knees in front of the bookcase and fishing a clean pacifier out of the orange plastic toy picnic basket that's beside the teddy bear and the clock.

His 'nippy-nip' is enough for now. Harry isn't very hungry. He flops back to the floor, the diaper he wears for its comforting bulk sounding a loud crinkle beneath the blanket, and then he lets gravity and his mood pull him down the rest of the way so that he lies on his side on the bristly, too-new carpeting. He stares at his small collection of Dr. Seuss and I Spy books and the Spiderman yo-yo on the bottom bookshelf while he sucks on the familiar, rubbery silicone and waits to fall asleep. It's the middle of the day, but being this lonely while this little is exhausting.

He closes his eyes and imagines Perry leaning over him and rubbing his back, murmuring soothing nothings down to him. Harry feels a pang, knowing it will never happen for real, but continues pretending all the same.

If there's one childlike quality that Harry's glad to have kept, it's his ability to play pretend. It's all that's gotten him this far.

He pretends he is a contented, if not tired and cranky, little baby who has just been put down for his nap by his Daddy. He pretends that Daddy is just in the other room, reading a newspaper or a book on the imaginary couch and planning to spend more time with Harry once he is rested.

Harry soon does fall asleep. And although it isn't a very restful or long sleep, while it lasts he truly is contented.


End file.
